Allow me to get a bit philosophical for a paragraph or two – the reason for it will become clear. Why do any of us become scientists? Curiosity about the natural world is a big part of it, of course, along with realising how much there is still to be understood and wanting to be a part of uncovering it. But underneath that, I would say, is a belief in something that not every modern philosopher places the same amount of belief in: truth itself.
That’s because most scientists are (consciously or unconsciously) philosophical realists. We believe there is an external reality, a physical world separate from human thoughts, perceptions and language. In other words, the discoveries we make in the lab and in the field are not merely things we invent, but things we find. Cells existed before we saw them with microscopes, and they contained complex molecules before we even knew how elements make chemical bonds. Gravity decreased as an inverse square before we even had that mathematical concept, and that relationship itself broke down near large gravity wells before we even noticed Mercury’s unusual orbital behaviour and before Albert Einstein worked out the relativistic mathematics behind it.
Every year we understand more, and most of us would say that we uncover more truth on the way. That process relies on open sharing of information, and being able to interrogate, examine and criticise ideas, to test how closely they describe our reality.
The concept of truth is very much on my mind as I write this column. You see, my wife is Iranian. My own government has been raining munitions down on my in-laws. The constantly shifting reasons provided by our elected president and his spokespeople make determining the truth challenging: the war is over, it’s just beginning; other nations must help, we don’t need any help; we’re replacing the regime, we don’t care about replacing it; energy prices won’t go up, they might go up but it’s someone else’s fault, they will go up and it’s good for you; we’re negotiating a deal. The twisting never stops.
It fits the moment. Truth has always had a rough time in politics, especially in wartime. But the current administration has made it clear that it values fealty and ideology above truth and evidence. That’s not just regarding the latest war, of course: look at the drastic reversals in its approach to regulating new vaccines and deploying existing ones, or cancelling wind and solar energy projects in favour of burning more fossil fuels and dismantling the basis for legislation to address climate change (which apparently is a hoax). The Iranian regime likewise has its own version of the truth, which conveniently reinforces its authoritarian grip on the long-suffering Iranian people. So how does one react to all this?
Let the lie come into the world. Let it even triumph. But not through me.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The danger (as William Blake put it) is that we become what we behold. I very much want this not to happen, but in fighting back there’s another danger, as put by Friedrich Nietzsche with his characteristic dramatic flair: struggle not with monsters, lest one become a monster oneself. One must resist the temptation to use the same weapons as are being used against you, to never forget that the truth is supremely valuable and that we cannot lie our way to it.
That’s always been the case in science, as much as we humans who practice it can fall short of its ideals. But that doesn’t mean that such ideals aren’t worth having. My response to the current moment is to tell the truth about it as best I can and as best I know. The current US government wants me to believe that it, alone, knows the real truth – regardless of how frequently that ‘truth’ changes – and that questioning or criticising its actions or ideology is unpatriotic and criminal.
These are lies. And I flatly refuse to go along with them. I work all day to uncover truths about the physical world, and I am staying with that in every aspect of my life. ‘Let the lie come into the world,’ said Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ‘let it even triumph. But not through me.’
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